UPDATED ON:
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
11:25 Mecca time, 08:25 GMT
 
News Asia-Pacific
Torture warning for Tibet detainees
Amnesty says Chinese authorities must allow independent monitors into Tibet [AFP]

Human rights groups have urged China to allow independent monitors access to all protesters arrested during the ongoing crackdown in Tibet, saying they are at risk of torture.

 

The call comes after China said more than 100 people had turned themselves over to police following a pledge of lenie

Mark Allison of human rights group Amnesty International told Al Jazeera that if the reports in state media were correct China was under an obligation to make the names of those people public and state where they are being held.

"What we are very concerned about is that anybody detained over the past few days is at high risk of torture or ill treatment and we need some independent scrutiny," he said, speaking from Hong Kong.

 

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On Wednesday reports from the Tibetan capital said Chinese security forces were conducting house to house searches searching for activisits they believed had been behind the unrest.

 

Allison said Amnesty was also calling on China to allow an independent United Nations investigation into the situation in Tibet and the events of the past week.

 

Tibet's exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, has also called for independent investigators to be allowed into the region.

 

On Tuesday New York-based Human Rights Watch said it too was worried about the fate of Tibetans detained by Chinese authorities.

 

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"Given the long and well-documented history of torture of political activists by China's security forces, there is every reason to fear for the safety of those recently detained," Brad Adams, the group's Asia director, said in a statement

 

Amnesty's Mark Allison said it was ironic that China had imposed a complete media blackout on the situation in Tibet at a time when authorities had promised complete media freedom in the run up to the Olympics.

 

"The crackdown clearly is not the kind of image China wanted to promote to the outside world, he said

 

China, Allison said, was "on notice from the international community" that it could not use methods it has used in the past against Tibetan protesters, such as torture and arbitrary detentions.

 Source: Al Jazeera
 
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